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Sunday, October 9, 2016

My younger brother Mark came home this morning from having spent the night at his girlfriend Bev's residence, and he brought what is supposed to be a fully-loaded Android TV Box.

He never got sufficient information from the seller to realize that the damned thing has to be connected to the Internet ─ he thought it would connect to the T.V.'s cable-vision feed, or somehow pull in what it needs from the atmosphere as in Wi-Fi.

So after helping him muddle around until he realized that it wasn't that simple, I pointed out that we would need a bloody long cable to stretch to my step-sons' den area where the router is. I already have a darned long cable running from it to my computer here upstairs where I keep my PC.

With some dawning understanding, he then headed away and ended up buying a 50-foot cable from Best Buy ─ he said he had to pay something like $1 a foot.

But no matter ─ the T.V. is still unaffected. We cannot get the Android TV Box to exert its presence. The T.V. just runs as it always has.

I suspect that he's spent about $150 on the Android TV Box and the 50-foot cable, if not a little more.

He finally left in the early afternoon to go and catch a meat draw at a bar, and put me in charge of figuring the mess out.

Well, I can't.

Hell, I don't know if the Android TV Box is supposed to display anything on a T.V. screen even if it has no Internet connection ─ perhaps some sort of a message.

If I at least knew that something should be displaying on the screen, then I would know that the problem lies with how the Android TV Box is connected to the T.V., and we could worry about the Internet connectivity later.

Too much time has been wasted on this stupid thing ─ I wanted to get out today to do some shopping and experience some of the breaks of sunshine we have had today. But that is not to be.

God, I hate my futile, useless life!

I'm going to end this section with this photo took of my wife Jack back on September 8 ─ she's standing at the back left corner of our home as determined if one were facing it directly. The corner is out of sight at the right border of the photo.

A neighbour's home is on the other side of that fence:

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I was somewhat surprised to read just recently that yellow fever may be making a big comeback, and that the mosquito that carries the disease is the same one that carries the Zika virus, chikungunya, and dengue.

As yet, there is no known cure.

The U.S. has suffered yellow fever outbreaks in the past, as that Wikipedia article I linked to reveals.

The southern city of New Orleans was plagued with major epidemics during the 19th century, most notably in 1833 and 1853. At least 25 major outbreaks took place in the Americas during the 18th and 19th centuries, including particularly serious ones in Cartagena in 1741, Cuba in 1762 and 1900, Santo Domingo in 1803, and Memphis in 1878.

And:

The yellow fever epidemic of 1793 in Philadelphia, which was then the capital of the United States, resulted in the deaths of several thousand people, more than 9% of the population. The national government fled the city, including President George Washington. Additional yellow fever epidemics struck Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York in the 18th and 19th centuries, and traveled along steamboat routes from New Orleans. They caused some 100,000–150,000 deaths in total.

In 1853, Cloutierville, Louisiana, had a late summer outbreak of yellow fever that quickly killed 68 of the 91 inhabitants. A local doctor concluded that some unspecified infectious agent had arrived in a package from New Orleans. In 1858, St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Charleston, South Carolina, suffered 308 yellow fever deaths, reducing the congregation by half. A ship carrying persons infected with the virus arrived in Hampton Roads in southeastern Virginia in June 1855. The disease spread quickly through the community, eventually killing over 3,000 people, mostly residents of Norfolk and Portsmouth. In 1873, Shreveport, Louisiana, lost almost a quarter of its population to yellow fever. In 1878, about 20,000 people died in a widespread epidemic in the Mississippi River Valley. That year, Memphis had an unusually large amount of rain, which led to an increase in the mosquito population. The result was a huge epidemic of yellow fever. The steamship John D. Porter took people fleeing Memphis northward in hopes of escaping the disease, but passengers were not allowed to disembark due to concerns of spreading yellow fever. The ship roamed the Mississippi River for the next two months before unloading her passengers. The last major U.S. outbreak was in 1905 in New Orleans.

So the mosquitoes carrying it can survive quite northerly ─ it is not a disease confined to the tropics.

Five to ten percent of all diagnosed cases of yellow fever are fatal. Jaundice occurring during a yellow fever infection is an extremely grave predictor. Twenty to fifty percent of these patients die of the infection. Death may occur due to massive bleeding (hemorrhage), often following a lapse into a comatose state.

Medications by the fistful are not the way to go...unless you want to go, that is.

Exercise certainly is vital. In fact, another study has revealed that getting a certain recommended amount per week can actually reduce the risk of developing breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke:

Still, how many seniors can do all of that each day? It would be an effort for a lot of young people ─ for example, I personally have never known anyone who could run at a vigorous pace for an hour each and every single day of the week!

When I was younger, I used to run 21 laps in the outside lane of a fitness or jogging track. It never took me anywhere near an hour, yet was probably something over six miles.

However, I only would do it every second day because it would start to become too taxing ─ I was a hard runner. There was no easy jogging for me.

Sometimes I would run 40 laps ─ and I once did so for four consecutive days. But by the fourth day, I was hurting ─ even my hipbones were painful. I had to stop doing it.

But I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself if you're able to meet the recommendations. I just know that I cannot do so every day ─ I would have to have live somewhere in which I could get out and be active.

All I have are traffic-choked streets, and people, people, people everywhere. I mostly play the recluse and hide away here at home ─ it is far too unpalatable out there.

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Here to close out today's post is a 41-year-old journal entry from back when I was 25 years old, and living in a basement housekeeping unit in New Westminster.

I was renting the small unit in a house located on Ninth Street at Third Avenue.

I see that I had a morning appointment to keep with my social worker, Russ Jeffs.

I was employed just one day a week through an employment initiatives or incentives programme that was in place between social services and my employer. Because of my involvement in the programme, I was paid the going rate of social assistance per month for a single person, plus an extra stipend for working.

I also see that I had plans to visit my mother Irene Dorosh in the Kennedy Heights area of Surrey ─ her home was my main mailing address.

That little house is now gone, but its address was 12106 - 90th Avenue. To hike directly there from where I was living would take about 1½ hours of fast walking.

Anyway, I had gone to bed the evening before this journal entry at 7:00 p.m.

THURSDAY, October 9, 1975I must really be well-rested, getting up just short of 5:00 a..m. with only one point of interrupted sleep around 11:30 p.m. last night; sounds like it is raining.I am going to try and make my welfare appointment as close to 9:00 a.m. as possible.Ken Garcia was there, and we spoke together; I also recognized Bill's Moose with Paula, the gal from B.J.R.T. who lived where Howie does now, but said nothing to them.Jeffs wants me to appear at 1:30 p.m. on the 20th for a review of my situation, and this concerns me; he made it sound I might be facing a panel.Leaving, I planned to go to Whalley and buy a boiling chicken and peanut butter, but the rain convinced me to travel otherwise.I did buy a bird's corpse at Scott Village meats for 45¢ a lb.I got to mom's and learned that since she & Alex have a fête of sorts tomorrow night, she will anyway stew my 3 lb. bird and leave it for me to eat Saturday after they take off to Reno.Mark dropped off Cathy shortly past noon, not returning till after the movie Carry On...Up the Khyber had ended; she invited me for Thanksgiving's dinner Sunday; Bill's is Monday.

Quite a planned week-end, that. It seems Angela has broken off with Garry.Bill phoned during the movie, and said he'd come pick me up.He arrived near 3:00 p.m., and we left not too long after Mark & Cathy.My mail was The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta.I promised Bill to go over and watch Space: 1999 at 7:00 p.m., though I have an aching left eye; too much TV.My unfed weight arriving at mom's was 182 or 3!Just after 5:30 p.m. I fell to Mayfair's Manda Kuyper.I visited with Bill, borrowing his Savage Sword of Conan #9 for the Boris Vallejo cover, and buying Invaders #4 on my way home.Bed at 9:30 p.m.

I now do not clearly remember who Ken Garcia was, but the social services office must have been bustling. "Moose" was a co-worker of my old friend William Alan Gill ─ I have no memory of any "Paula." However, I evidently knew of her from an eight-week full-time course we were both on late in 1974 ─ the course was entitled Basic Job Readiness Training (B.J.R.T.).

"Howie" was or had been a co-worker of sorts at the place that was employing me a day per week.

I didn't have much money, so I would go to some lengths for food deals.

"Scott Village meats" would have been somewhere along Scott Road (120th Street) as I was hiking out to visit my mother. I no longer remember it, and I am sure it no longer exists.

My younger brother Mark dropped off his girlfriend Catherine Jeanette Gunther while I was at my mother's home. Mark and Jeanette were sharing a home together with her two little girls.

"Angela" was a young lady who had been a girlfriend of sorts for my brother Mark's best friend back then, Garry Porteous.

My dear friend Bill also lived in New Westminster, and was renting a bachelor suite not too far at all from where I was living. He had a car. It was dear of him to offer to come and fetch me home.

After he got me back to my room, it seems that I succumbed to the charms of the models in Mayfair magazine.

But whether I felt self-loathing for the act or not, I did keep my promise to later visit Bill.

By the way, I still do have that Frank Frazetta book of art that had come in the mail for me at my mother's home.